


love this (i'll tame you)

by lone_lilly



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-30
Updated: 2008-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lone_lilly/pseuds/lone_lilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, let's say through S5. <em> She just knows it feels like forever since she's seen him.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	love this (i'll tame you)

**Author's Note:**

> Not my usual story.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
---|---  
  
love this (i'll tame you)

**Title:** love this (i'll tame you)  
**Author:** [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lone_lilly/profile)[**lone_lilly**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lone_lilly/)  
**Pairing:** Meredith/Derek  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Oh, let's say through S5. _ She just knows it feels like forever since she's seen him._  
**Author's Note:** Not my usual story.

  


\---

  
She's happy to see only his car in the driveway when she pulls up.

Izzie had a surgery, she knows, but Alex must have gone out for the evening. Both of them will probably be gone for hours.

She's glad about that too.

She wouldn't admit it out loud-- not to anyone but especially Cristina-- but she's wanted nothing more all day than to come home and crawl into bed with Derek.

Sex optional.

Of course, they'd had one of their fights and he'd avoided her at work all day. It was something new he was doing when they fought and she's not entirely certain she likes it even if it is what she asked for. Space is good. But so is knowing he'll be there when she's ready for him. She'd half expected him to slink off to the trailer again like he had... oh, when was it? Last night? The night before? She's worked too many odd hours this week to keep up.

She just knows it feels like forever since she's seen him.

Letting herself in, she feels gooseflesh erupt on her lower arms as she slips out of her coat. Her hands have been freezing all day. Even inside latex gloves holding hot internal organs, she'd still had a chill she couldn't shake.

The house is dark downstairs and she turns on the lamp on the table near the door so she can adjust the thermostat. It says seventy-five but it feels like twenty degrees less than that and she frowns as she makes a mental note to have Alex check it out later.

The draft is worse in front of her door and she wishes they hadn't had that stupid fight at all so she could lure him into a hot shower. The thought of the hot water and his fingers trailing over her skin warms her a little. Maybe sex isn't so optional after all.

She just needs to make up with him first.

Easier said than done lately, but she takes a deep breath and opens her bedroom door, her eyes squinting immediately as they try to adjust to the darkness. He doesn't even have the little nightlight on she keeps in the bathroom so neither of them have to wake each other up in the middle of the night.

"Derek?" she says softly, just making out his still form in the chair in front of her window.

He ignores her and she sighs, stepping into the room and shutting the door gently behind her. So, he's still mad at her then. Something else that's new. Time away from him makes her want him more but it only seems to do the opposite for him. Like he's learning to live without her.

She shivers again and crosses her arms tightly around herself. Just the cold, she tells herself. That feeling in the pit of her stomach, the dread-- It's just the cold.

"Derek," she tries again, a little more firmly and he makes a small noise in acknowledgement.

"I'm sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have said the things I did. You were just trying to—"

"I love you."

His voice is so quiet but she can't pretend she doesn't hear the meaning behind his words. The anguish.

"I know,"

"I. Love. You. And I tried to make you happy. I did. I thought. I thought I made you happy." He stops then says again, stubbornly, almost to himself: "You _were_ happy."

"I was," she agrees, catching herself in the past tense. "I _am_."

She can barely see his shadow move as he shakes his head. He doesn't believe her. Well, why should he? She isn't great at letting him know how much she needs him. She knows this. But she's been trying. Hasn't he noticed?

"No," he argues and for a second she wonders if she'd spoken out loud.

"No, I could have done more. I should have. I should have done so much more."

"Derek," she says for the third time, the panic starting to catch in her throat.

She feels stuck, immobile. She wants to stand in front of him, to see his face but she's afraid too.

"You're scaring me," she tells him. She wonders if he knows how much it takes out of her to admit it.

"You were happy. I made you happy. It's all I wanted. Everything. I just wanted to be the one to make you happy. Why wasn't it enough?" he murmurs, his voice breaking in the middle.

"Why is it never enough?"

It's not just his words that seem to collapse then, but all of him. She can see him fold in on himself, head burying in his hands as one, long sob seems to wrack through him.

_Crap,_ she thinks as she watches him. She's never been one of those women who got all emotional when a man cried in front of her. It makes her uncomfortable. But now… She's never seen him cry before and it twists her gut, breaks her heart.

She hadn't meant to hurt him so badly. It didn't even occur to her that she might have. But of course, she should have known. It's all been building up to this. Every fight, every time it took her a little longer to mend them. She should have found him yesterday—or was it the day before when all of this started? Never mind, she thinks. The point is she shouldn't have let it get this bad.

Inhaling sharply and swallowing back her own traitorous tears—not the cold now. She can't blame this feeling of failure on a faulty thermostat—she steels her resolve and moves in front of him, sinking to the floor and wrapping her arms around him as best as she can.

"You do make me happy," she whispers to him. Once, then again. Then over and over until his weight finally relaxes against her and she closes her eyes in relief.

"I love you," she promises, the words as foreign to her own ears as they are to his.

She hasn't told him in so long. Months? No, a year now. She hasn't said it since that first time. She thought he knew, though. All those times she came back to him, she thought he knew why.

Well, she was wrong. She can see it now.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs into his hair, hugging him tighter. "I know I'm not great at saying it, but I love you."

_Please,_ she begs silently. _Please let it be enough this time._

She holds him until she can tell he's no longer crying and then after. Long after, it seems to her but neither of them make a move to do anything else. Her knees are hurting and she's cold, so cold, even pressed up against him like this.

"Come to bed," she whispers finally, hating the way it sounds like a question.

He doesn't stir until she pulls away, standing and tugging on his hand, and then he follows her to the bed, the two of them sinking together onto the mattress.

She kisses him hesitantly, hoping he knows that she isn't trying to fix them with sex. He kisses her the same way and she thinks maybe he doesn't know that after all.

But they need each other. She needs him.

She's willing to admit that to herself. At least this way she can hold onto him so he doesn't leave. Can't leave.

\--

She is hurt but not surprised to find he's gone when she wakes up in the morning.

Gone, and she knows without even having to go downstairs, that he's not there waiting for her. She wouldn't be able to explain how she knows. It's just a feeling she has. A perception.

Perhaps it comes with getting to know a person. Really seeing them. She supposes that could be said for her and Derek, except she always figured this would be the happily ever after part.

She wonders why it feels so _lonely_, then.

Crawling out of bed, she grabs the bathrobe and heads toward the shower, It's Alex's voice she hears first from Izzie's bedroom and she can't help but roll her eyes.

They're arguing too, of course. Always. How come none of them can have normal relationships?

"Iz, he doesn't want us here."

"We can't just leave him," Izzie yells back. "He needs us."

"This was her house," Alex argues and Meredith stops abruptly, feeling her defenses rise immediately.

Why are they arguing about her mother?

"Everything in here reeks of Meredith."

"I know!" Izzie groans as if that is precisely her point. "He won't let me clean anything outside of the kitchen. He just sits in her bedroom night after night like he's waiting for her to come back. I could even hear him crying out to her last night."

_They're talking about Derek, _ Meredith realizes angrily, holding the lapels of her robe closed as she stomps down the hall to Izzie's room, only to stop short once again just outside the door.

"She's dead, Izzie!" Alex roars and Meredith flinches at the conviction behind his words.

Who's dead?

"He's grieving and—"

"You don't think I know he's grieving? Like, I've suddenly forgotten what that's like? We're _all_ grieving, Alex. All of us miss her. Every. Single. One. Of us. Which is why he needs us. We understand what he's going through."

"It's none of our business what he's going through! His girlfriend died—"

"WHAT?" Meredith yells at both of them as she enters the room but Alex never misses a breath and neither of them bother to look at her.

"Give the guy a break. Stop trying to fix something that can't be fixed."

"Meredith wouldn't want us to just leave him like this!"

"Meredith's DEAD, Iz. She doesn't get a vote anymore. Now it's about Derek."

"Nice," Izzie spits out just as Meredith screams, "I'M RIGHT HERE!"

Izzie turns on her heel suddenly before Meredith can move out of the way. She grits her teeth waiting for the impact—

_So cold. The water's so cold. I can't—the pier is right there. I just have to swim a little farther. But it's cold. And I'm tired. So tired of being cold. So tired._

\--that doesn't come as Izzie's body passes completely through her own. For a moment there is only an empty, weightless feeling like being displaced and all Meredith can remember is the cold water and drowning, drowning, drowning.

Giving up.

_But I came back,_ she thinks wildly, spinning around to see Izzie staring back at her, eyes wide with distrust.

"I came back!"

The look passes, leaving only disgust as Izzie shakes her head.

"You might be ready to just cast her aside, but I'm not and Derek certainly isn't. And I'm not moving out until I know he's going to be okay. I owe that to Meredith."

"Izzie," she and Alex yell at the same time and there's that feeling again—

_So tired of being ordinary. I just want to sleep. To stop. I just want everything to stop._

\--as Alex steps through her, following Izzie down the hall.

None of this is right. They can't be right. She can't be dead.

She remembers dying. But she remembers coming back too. Her mother telling her she wasn't ordinary. Running out of time. Running. She chose to come back. For Derek. She wasn't ready to die. It wasn't enough.

She ran. She came back.

"I came back!" she cries out to the empty room, trying to pull up any memory to prove herself right.

Derek avoiding her. Derek crying. Derek refusing to look at her even when they made love.

She can't remember the last time Derek looked at her. Really looked at her.

"No! It wasn't enough! I couldn't. A whiff! It's not enough!"

She crumbles onto Izzie's bed, the image of Derek crying alone in her bedroom hitting her with full force. Denny had warned her, hadn't he? He told her if she took too long she would change him. Break him.

He tried to make her happy and she broke him.

"I'm sorry. Derek, I'm so sorry!"

She's so cold. Always so cold. Never warm anymore.

"I tried, Derek. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I tried to come back!"

But she didn't.

\--

**Author's Note: *chews fingernails* Okay, it was a cheap shot but it's Halloween and I wanted to write a ghost story. I hope you don't hate me too much? :D? Title comes from "Halloween" by the Dave Matthews Band, fittingly enough. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
